Circuit breakers, time clocks, relays and other electrical components are frequently mounted on mounting rails known in Europe and elsewhere as D.I.N. rails, and these rails retain the components in a simple manner, being arranged so that a single rail can support any one or a plurality of components having a standard mounting base.
D.I.N. rails are of general channel form, wherein the upstanding flanges have out-turned portions and these out-turned portions engage beneath re-entrant surfaces of the components to be mounted.
In "soft wiring" situations, the standard D.I.N. system is eminently suitable. For example a circuit breaker utilised with a D.I.N. system is provided with re-entrant surfaces of a moulding which are spaced from one another and comprise a first V-groove the surfaces of which engage over the out-turned portions of a flange, and a second V-groove which is between a movable latching member on the circuit breaker and a base surface thereof. By withdrawing the latch, the circuit breaker can be moved slightly to one side and then lifted off the mounting rail. However when the bus bars are used for mounting such elements, it is necessary for the bus bars to be bent in such a way that the circuit breaker moulding can be lifted away thereform vertically, and this is damaging and in some cases can result in breakage of the metal comprised in the bus bars.
In the Australian patent No. 511858 in the name of Brown Boveri there were disclosed certain improvements, but these did not avoid the above identified problem. In our Australian application No. 17866/83 there was disclosed a bus bar mounting which assisted in avoiding the problem of bending bus bars, and the arrangement disclosed therein is also disclosed generally in this specification.
The main object of this invention is to provide an improvement whereby the above identified difficulties are avoided, and therein it is feasible to mount an electrical component on a mounting rail but release the element with a minimum of damage to ancillary connections, for example bus bars.